DC is not a typical American city. It is a federal government protectorate and the home to many national monuments and federal buildings. This is NOT the hill to choose to die on.
"Talk softly and carry a big stick" were the wise words of Teddy Roosevelt. The DC Mayor has the perfect temperament to stand up to Trump and give him enough rope to hang himself. The lawsuits have already been filed clearly showing the actions of the DOJ are unlawful and unnecessary.
This is political theater and can either be turned into a comedy (of errors) or a tragedy. There are all sorts of Sun Tzu "Art of War" wise quotes applicable here about outwitting your enemy. MAGA is looking for an excuse to resort to violence, but we can pick our battlegrounds and timing.
There will only be one chance to get this done... “If you come at the king, you best not miss.” ~ Omar from the HBO series The Wire.
It's not a typical city, no. And I'll go further and say that our local government should bear some blame for leaving the door open to this kind of shenanigan by not doing an adequate job.
Still, I'm struck by how few people seemed to notice what seems to me to be a pretty important move.
Perhaps quoting from a fictional character in a fictional HBO series is not the best way to make your case.
It's been ten full years since the totalitarian progressive machine fist attempted to take down Trump. They have succeeded only in destroying themselves. Trump is now engaging in mop-up operations.
However good or bad Trump is, remember that he derived his power from those who attempted to destroy him. Learn from that.
What “totalitarian progressive machine” are you referring to? The January 6 insurrection was led by Trump and MAGA supporters who vandalized the Capitol and attacked federal police. “If you don’t want to do the time, don’t do the crime(s).”
Trump’s ICE ‘brown shirts’ have a bigger budget than the USMC! It is obvious who the totalitarian is…
I would contend that there is a difference between setting decency standards on the public internet and sending federal troops to occupy cities. How many "rural white, chronically online, Trump-curious(WTF), males have been arrested and sent to El Salvador prisons without trials? This is a crazy false equivalence and far off topic.
Usually, the people who claim they were canceled are actually the loudest and have their freedom still, because we're a free country, just look at the insufferable, scientifically incorrect antivax "activists."
Regarding why Democrats seem so deflated and passive in the face of what Trump is doing, I think it is driven by irreconcilable differences between the centrist and the Left wing of the party. Before November 2024, the centrist democrats mostly went along with the liberal wing of the party, applying brakes on some extreme ideas from time time to time (E.g. Medicare for all). After Trump's reelection though, something fundamentally changed for the centrist.
The centrist wing of the party, Matty Yglesias being its best representative, wants the party to moderate on cultural issues in particular purely for pragmatic reasons, and not on merit necessarily. For example - should the party come out explicitly against trans in women sports? Centrists would advocate party publicly take a position against it.
The Left is disillusioned with the centrist leadership of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer - the leaders chosen to signal to the voters that moderates are in charge to keep the loony left in check. The Left thinks the party should double down on progressive politics because that is where the base is and even if they lose a couple of cycles the Independents will eventually turn to the party at some point, probably when the disastrous policies of Trump administration come home to roost. Deep down there is this recognition that the liberal base is unwilling to part with their strongly held beliefs just to win elections.
So, for diametrically opposite reasons, both wings are disappointed with the party and are at an impasse. How can the party resist Trump administration policies when it is so divided?
Trump is exploiting this split in the party: sending in federal guards in DC and remove several homeless encampments is popular even amongst many democrats; the Left obviously hates this but loud criticism about POTUS overreach only hardens the view amongst Independents and centrist democrats that the Left can not govern effectively.
Thanks for this :) So, on the state of exception, yes, leaders can declare one and even decide what constitutes one, but in most liberal democratic countries there is legislation to either limit the power of the exception through parliamentary mechanisms which aren't apparent here or set guidelines for what constitutes the emergency (such as times of war, a pandemic, or natural disaster requiring decisive government intervention). The act of emergency is not an overreach for a democratic President, but what Trump is doing is stretching this to its very limits as far as I can tell. There is no emergency; he has merely made one up and is using this false explanation as an excuse to put federal troops in states. That is in every way stretching what acts of emergency should be doing to its very limit and using a last resort as an act of political expediency at best or at worst is using this to lay the groundwork for mass intimidation further along the lines of his presidency or in 2028 when either Trump or someone else in the Republican Party runs.
Given everything we also now know about 2020 and the extensive legal and extra-legal efforts that Trump and his supporters went to when attempting to override Biden's victory, I am not sure that we can be so certain that 2028 if Trump is continued to be given this kind of leeway, will end up with a free and fair election. I also disagree with Damir that gerrymandering is not a significant problem. It is likely that it is. It's not simply an act of shuffling around a few votes- gerrymandering has been a substantial problem in the US for a long time. Not only does it alter districts into unreal entities which are deformed versions of genuine communities, undermining the actual needs of representation, but by doing so, gerrymandering limits the expression of valid popular will. The fact that in the US, districting is the product of political machinations is odd, as in the UK, we leave it to an expert body to decide what the boundaries should be.
I agree with Shadi that democracies get what they deserve, and as HL Mencken said, voters get their choices given to them 'good and hard'. A Shadi candidacy would be very interesting, and indeed, we need something more in our politics than what is currently on offer. In the UK, a book was published a couple of years ago asking 'why we get the wrong politicians' by Isabel Hardman. I think Shadi would make a good one for the very reasons why he says he'd be a bad one.
Perhaps there is a problem with the lack of emotion, but just as in Weimar, Germany, the state of emergency was used long before Hitler came to power, the normalisation of such excessive actions makes me nervous about what may be to come. Trump is either doing this to deflect from the Epstein scandal, which has blown back in his face, or it's a prelude for something much darker. I really hope it's the former.
DC is not a typical American city. It is a federal government protectorate and the home to many national monuments and federal buildings. This is NOT the hill to choose to die on.
"Talk softly and carry a big stick" were the wise words of Teddy Roosevelt. The DC Mayor has the perfect temperament to stand up to Trump and give him enough rope to hang himself. The lawsuits have already been filed clearly showing the actions of the DOJ are unlawful and unnecessary.
This is political theater and can either be turned into a comedy (of errors) or a tragedy. There are all sorts of Sun Tzu "Art of War" wise quotes applicable here about outwitting your enemy. MAGA is looking for an excuse to resort to violence, but we can pick our battlegrounds and timing.
There will only be one chance to get this done... “If you come at the king, you best not miss.” ~ Omar from the HBO series The Wire.
It's not a typical city, no. And I'll go further and say that our local government should bear some blame for leaving the door open to this kind of shenanigan by not doing an adequate job.
Still, I'm struck by how few people seemed to notice what seems to me to be a pretty important move.
Perhaps quoting from a fictional character in a fictional HBO series is not the best way to make your case.
It's been ten full years since the totalitarian progressive machine fist attempted to take down Trump. They have succeeded only in destroying themselves. Trump is now engaging in mop-up operations.
However good or bad Trump is, remember that he derived his power from those who attempted to destroy him. Learn from that.
Absolutely true.
You would have made a great guard at a concentration camp in Poland in the 40s.
Forget about Shadi running for school board or bake sale treasurer, the people want Damir as their king!
What “totalitarian progressive machine” are you referring to? The January 6 insurrection was led by Trump and MAGA supporters who vandalized the Capitol and attacked federal police. “If you don’t want to do the time, don’t do the crime(s).”
Trump’s ICE ‘brown shirts’ have a bigger budget than the USMC! It is obvious who the totalitarian is…
I would contend that there is a difference between setting decency standards on the public internet and sending federal troops to occupy cities. How many "rural white, chronically online, Trump-curious(WTF), males have been arrested and sent to El Salvador prisons without trials? This is a crazy false equivalence and far off topic.
Usually, the people who claim they were canceled are actually the loudest and have their freedom still, because we're a free country, just look at the insufferable, scientifically incorrect antivax "activists."
Regarding why Democrats seem so deflated and passive in the face of what Trump is doing, I think it is driven by irreconcilable differences between the centrist and the Left wing of the party. Before November 2024, the centrist democrats mostly went along with the liberal wing of the party, applying brakes on some extreme ideas from time time to time (E.g. Medicare for all). After Trump's reelection though, something fundamentally changed for the centrist.
The centrist wing of the party, Matty Yglesias being its best representative, wants the party to moderate on cultural issues in particular purely for pragmatic reasons, and not on merit necessarily. For example - should the party come out explicitly against trans in women sports? Centrists would advocate party publicly take a position against it.
The Left is disillusioned with the centrist leadership of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer - the leaders chosen to signal to the voters that moderates are in charge to keep the loony left in check. The Left thinks the party should double down on progressive politics because that is where the base is and even if they lose a couple of cycles the Independents will eventually turn to the party at some point, probably when the disastrous policies of Trump administration come home to roost. Deep down there is this recognition that the liberal base is unwilling to part with their strongly held beliefs just to win elections.
So, for diametrically opposite reasons, both wings are disappointed with the party and are at an impasse. How can the party resist Trump administration policies when it is so divided?
Trump is exploiting this split in the party: sending in federal guards in DC and remove several homeless encampments is popular even amongst many democrats; the Left obviously hates this but loud criticism about POTUS overreach only hardens the view amongst Independents and centrist democrats that the Left can not govern effectively.
Thanks for this :) So, on the state of exception, yes, leaders can declare one and even decide what constitutes one, but in most liberal democratic countries there is legislation to either limit the power of the exception through parliamentary mechanisms which aren't apparent here or set guidelines for what constitutes the emergency (such as times of war, a pandemic, or natural disaster requiring decisive government intervention). The act of emergency is not an overreach for a democratic President, but what Trump is doing is stretching this to its very limits as far as I can tell. There is no emergency; he has merely made one up and is using this false explanation as an excuse to put federal troops in states. That is in every way stretching what acts of emergency should be doing to its very limit and using a last resort as an act of political expediency at best or at worst is using this to lay the groundwork for mass intimidation further along the lines of his presidency or in 2028 when either Trump or someone else in the Republican Party runs.
Given everything we also now know about 2020 and the extensive legal and extra-legal efforts that Trump and his supporters went to when attempting to override Biden's victory, I am not sure that we can be so certain that 2028 if Trump is continued to be given this kind of leeway, will end up with a free and fair election. I also disagree with Damir that gerrymandering is not a significant problem. It is likely that it is. It's not simply an act of shuffling around a few votes- gerrymandering has been a substantial problem in the US for a long time. Not only does it alter districts into unreal entities which are deformed versions of genuine communities, undermining the actual needs of representation, but by doing so, gerrymandering limits the expression of valid popular will. The fact that in the US, districting is the product of political machinations is odd, as in the UK, we leave it to an expert body to decide what the boundaries should be.
I agree with Shadi that democracies get what they deserve, and as HL Mencken said, voters get their choices given to them 'good and hard'. A Shadi candidacy would be very interesting, and indeed, we need something more in our politics than what is currently on offer. In the UK, a book was published a couple of years ago asking 'why we get the wrong politicians' by Isabel Hardman. I think Shadi would make a good one for the very reasons why he says he'd be a bad one.
Perhaps there is a problem with the lack of emotion, but just as in Weimar, Germany, the state of emergency was used long before Hitler came to power, the normalisation of such excessive actions makes me nervous about what may be to come. Trump is either doing this to deflect from the Epstein scandal, which has blown back in his face, or it's a prelude for something much darker. I really hope it's the former.